


Case of Déjà Vu

by TwisterMelody



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Pre-Slash, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 10:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwisterMelody/pseuds/TwisterMelody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the months after his return, just as things are getting back to normal once more, Sherlock goes and pulls a stunt that is very much "a bit not good."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Case of Déjà Vu

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Let's Write Sherlock: Challenge 1!  
> Prompt: After a nearly disastrous case, Sherlock and John share a tense taxi ride back to Baker Street. With emotions running high, they finally arrive back at 221B, and then…

Gunfire exploded through the abandoned warehouse. The only available light source was the moon shining dimly through the dusty windows. John was crouched down behind some large crates with his own gun clenched tightly in his hand, praying that somehow Sherlock hadn't been in the midst of it all. Absolute silence fell when the firing stopped, and in that moment, he could have sworn that his heart did as well.  
  
The case started out simply enough. Sherlock and John had been summoned by Lestrade to track down a few high profile jewel thieves. Sherlock had scoffed at first, claiming it just wasn't worth his time. However, when the circumstances surrounding their fancy footwork emerged, his attitude changed, and within minutes the two of them were running around London once more.  
  
A hunch from the homeless network had given them a lead to the whereabouts of the men, the abandoned warehouse being their hiding spot of choice. It had also been the perfect place to store the stolen items. Sparkling valuables and other high priced items, no doubt stolen from unsuspecting homes, were stored in crates throughout the building. All hidden in plain sight. Sherlock had smirked at the idea.  
  
Once they arrived well after the sun had gone down, hey had spotted the three men almost immediately. Trained professionals in fighting, the lot of them. Sherlock, not being a man of patience, had went after the suspects, seemingly without bothering to contact the police. John was left in hiding. He strained to see what was happening, but the echoes carried well. There had been yelling along with the sounds of fists hitting jaws, and grunts of pain. Soon, the sounds of shuffling footsteps filled the air as all four men disappeared into the shadows.  
  
John had emerged from his hiding place to follow them, but it was incredibly dark. He cursed under his breath for not following Sherlock as he probably should have. He moved swiftly and quietly, and as he did, the sounds of unintelligible conversation became louder. Any attempt to listen to it was made pointless by the fact it was spoken in a foreign tongue. There was shouting, and he could hear Sherlock's voice booming through the place. He started running as fast as his legs could take him towards the sound, which led him to where he was now.  
  
There was a time in his life where he never thought he'd be in the midst of this sort of thing ever again, yet there he was, caught in an adrenaline rush. He had thrown himself behind the crate when the shots fired, gun clenched in hand, waiting. The silence that fell made him freeze on the spot, as if he could no longer make a voluntary movement. The sound of racing footsteps snapped him back to life, and he was running again.  
  
"Sherlock!" he called out into the darkness again and again. There was no response, and that alone sent a chill up his spine. His feet pounded against the pavement as his heart echoed loudly through his ears. He came across the detective alone on a platform, his tall figure crumpled against the wall. The moonlight beaming through the surrounding crates cast ominous shadows over his body, and his face was hidden by his great coat. The sight nearly stopped him in his tracks.  _This has got to be a nightmare, let me wake up._  
  
"Sherlock," he half whispered into the night, "no, no. God, no." It was like being slammed with the worst case of deja vu, suddenly taken back to a place he never wanted to revisit. A voice whispered in the back of his mind,  _I just got you back_. He rushed up to his friend's side and knelt down immediately. He couldn't see any blood, but it was still extremely dark from his viewpoint. "Sherlock, hey," he said as he shook him by the shoulders, "come on now, wake up!" he pleaded.  
  
Just as he finished his sentence and readied himself to feel for a pulse, he heard the roar of helicopter blades hovering above. John whipped his head around to look out of the tall windows. Outside the building there was shouting, and moments later the helicopter's blinding search light flooded the room. He turned back to Sherlock to get him help, but was instead met with a pair of brightly shining eyes and a lopsided grin worn by the detective.  
  
"You're... Okay?" he asked breathlessly.  
  
"Of course I am," Sherlock replied as he stood up effortlessly. John stayed kneeling on the ground with wide eyes and mouth agape. Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him. "Problem?"  
  
"For a minute I thought -"  
  
"Yes, well, I'm not. Obviously. Come on." And with that, Sherlock was out the door.  
  
John stood and gathered himself for a moment before following. Of all the stunts to pull, of all the things he could have done, he had essentially recreated the imaged that haunted John's dreams for the longest time. He shook himself off and strolled out the door with anger boiling through his veins. Outside there were swarms of police officers and a few paramedics on standby. The three men they had been after in the day were in handcuffs, and Sherlock was nearby talking with Lestrade with his hands behind his back.  
  
"And so you see Inspector, there was no harm done. I believe you'll find all the evidence you'll be needing just through those doors," he heard Sherlock say as he approached them. "I told you I'd send a text."  
  
"John, there you are," Lestrade said as he lay eyes upon him. "I see you've come out as fine as Sherlock has." John nodded and clenched his fists. Lestrade gave him a once over before adding, "It's erm, pretty late, I should let you two rest." Sherlock shot a look at him. "I'll just get the rest of the details in the morning then, shall I?" John nodded again and started walking off.  
  
Sherlock chased after him and quickly started babbling about each of the thieves, right down to the facts he'd gotten from the tears on their trousers and the scrapes on their hands. John just pursed his lips and kept marching forward to the road to hail a cab.  
  
"You're awfully quiet," Sherlock remarked. "Why?"  
  
"Why?" John echoed. "Tell me something, do you even think about your actions at all? Or do you just go about and delete it after it's happened?"  
  
"You're angry with me."  
  
"Yeah," John said as he scrubbed a hand over his face, "I am."  
  
The taxi ride home was anything but pleasant. The tension in the air was thick enough to be cut with a knife. John watched the buildings as they passed by out the window while Sherlock sat with his hands clasped together, occasionally looking to John with an intense concentration. Once at Baker Street, John quickly got out of the cab and marched inside, leaving Sherlock behind to pay for the fare.

"John," Sherlock called upon entering the doorway, "I need your assistance." The detective held open his palms to show deep lacerations etched across his inner hands that he'd kept hidden from view.

John turned to him. His mouth went slightly agape at the sight, but he quickly shut it again, shaking his head. "Why didn't you get the paramedics to help you, it's not as if you need me, anyhow."

Sherlock lowered his brow and studied his face for a moment. "I don't understand why you're upset. The case is solved, the criminals -"

"You don't understand?" A humorless laugh escaped his lips. "First, we get this case, and you go running after them without letting me in the plan at all. These men were ready to kill, Sherlock, and ready to kill  _you_!"

"But I'm not -"

"That's not the  _point_!" John's fist collided against the wall with force. "So there I was, like an idiot, worried about you, when gunshots erupted. Then I come find you motionless on the ground. I thought..." He trailed off and shook his head, dismissing the thought. "Really, you couldn't have given me shout? Anything?"

"No," he stated plainly.

"Right. Don't know why I even bother," he said roughly. John straightened up his his jacket and swung open the door to 221B, back into the bitter cold of the London night.

"Where are you going?"

"Out," he replied sharply. He walked away from Baker Street without looking back.

He walked through the abandoned streets, fighting against the wind with every step of the way. Sherlock had been back for about three months. He had waltzed back into John's life like nothing had happened, as if faking one's death wasn't a big deal. There was an apology, though, and an openness he'd never seen before. It hadn't been easy, but John accepted him back into his life. How could he not? After all this time he still needed him, after all. But if Sherlock continued pulling stunts like this, he wasn't sure if he could handle it.

He ended up in a quiet little pub in town. There weren't many others around, so he was left alone with his thoughts. He sat alone in a booth, sipping on a beer when Sherlock strolled in and sat across from him.  _Of course,_ he thought,  _of course he would find me. He always does._

Sherlock clasped his hands together on the table and averted his eyes downward. "They were fighters, not murderers. None of them knew their way around a gun," he said. "The shots hit the wall, I was perfectly fine the entire time."

"Yeah," John raised his eyebrows before taking another sip. "And you couldn't tell me that you were alright?"

"I thought you knew."

"Well, I didn't. Tell me," he began, "if it had been me out there, and you'd heard shots, wouldn't you have felt any concern at all?"

"Of course not," he replied cooly.

John swallowed and nodded tightly. He wasn't sure what response he had expected, but it certainly wasn't that one. "That's... Yeah. Okay." He started to get up to leave when Sherlock grabbed his arm from across the table with a slight wince.

"I know the measure of your skills and I trust you indefinitely. Should you have been in my position, perhaps the men would be incapacitated rather than walk out as they did."

A slight grin tugged at the corner of John's mouth as he eased back into his seat. "Right," he said. "Why, then? Why did you have to lay there and," he scrubbed a hand over his face, "play  _dead_? Do you have any idea whatsoever about what that would do to me? You must've, you've already seen it." John paused for a moment and looked down. "Or do you even care about that at all?"

Sherlock slightly flinched back at the words as if they'd caused physical damage. "John," he said quietly, "had I uttered a single syllable, the men would have turned back and you wouldn't have been so lucky, seeing as how you were focused on me. I couldn't let that happen. Not to you." Sherlock lay his hands out on the table between them. "There was no time to explain. I made the correct move for the both of us, and I won't apologize for it."

The light music danced it's way through the small area. Around, the other customers were lost in quiet chatter. These two ended up lost in their own world, for what was on the line was far more important than any topic of drunken conversation. John chewed over his lower lip and looked down at his own hands to avoid Sherlock's eyes. "You can't keep doing this to me," he said softly. "Do you understand? I can't do this again. Never again," he said with a tone of finality.

"I never meant for you to -"

"I know," John interrupted, sighing softly.  
  
There was a moment of silence in the pub. The music had stopped along with his words. He looked up to see Sherlock staring at him with a soft expression he couldn't quite place. Sherlock lowered his head before returning his eyes to John once more, full of open emotion.

"It won't happen again," Sherlock said after a moment. "You have my word."

John slowly nodded as the music began again. They could talk more later because frankly, he was tired. Besides, he had a patient to tend to. He took Sherlock's hands and faced them palm up to see the damage. There were multiple lacerations and dried blood along both palms. He traced his fingers over the wounds lightly. "And how did this happen?"

"I told you, they were fighters, not murderers," Sherlock smirked. "Terrible aim on all accounts, I dare say a lizard would have done a better job."

John smiled at him and laughed lightly. The most important thing to John in that moment was that they were both there and perfectly fine, everything else could wait. "Come on, up you get," he said as he climbed out of the booth, "We'll talk about this tomorrow. But right now, we need to get you fixed up." 

Sometime later, the warmth of 221B welcomed them. They sat in their respective chairs with the light of the fireplace flickering between them. John had Sherlock's hands in his own, doctoring them up. He was carefully wrapping the bandages around Sherlock's hand as Sherlock watched him closely, neither saying a word. It was a rare moment between the two, the quiet comfort of home and each other.

"You never did tell me, why didn't you just go to the paramedics?"

"Did you see them? First day on the job? No, no. I didn't want them," Sherlock scoffed. "But," he said as he enclosed his hands around John's, "as I said before, I trust you indefinitely. I do need you. It's rather idiotic of you to think otherwise." Sherlock's gaze stayed fixed on John as if he were the biggest puzzle ever created.

John didn't know what to say, really. He squeezed Sherlock's hands lightly. "I thought I'd lost you," he admitted quietly. They sat in silence for a brief moment, gazing into each other's eyes in a silent understanding between them. There was a depth of emotion that both kept hidden from view, but on this night next to the fireplace, they were faced with a level of understanding unknown before.

Sherlock's thumbs stroked over the back of John's hands. "You can't get rid of me that easily," he smiled, and John mirrored that smile.  
  
The cackling of the flames lasted well into the night, long after Sherlock's hands were bandaged up, and long after John and Sherlock had both knocked out upright on the sofa while watching terrible late night television. In the midst of his dream like state, Sherlock sleepily slumped against John whose arm closed around him instinctively, protectively pulling him closer. There were things that needed to be discussed in the morning, matters of utter importance to them and their friendship. But for tonight, it was fine, it was all fine.


End file.
